Method of manufacturing refractory material.



UNITED STATES Patented April 25, 1905.

PATENT EEIcE.

GUILFORD G. (jrLYNN, OF IOLA, KANSAS, ASSIGNOH OF ONE-THIRD TO FRANK B. SMITH.

METHOD OF MANUFACTURING REFRACTORY MATERIAL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 788,131, dated April 25, 1905.

implication filed July 25, 1904, Serial No. 218,107.

Be it known that l, (.TUILFORD C. GLYNN, a citizen of the United Statesucsidingat- Iola, in the county of Allen and State of Kansas, have invented a new and useful Method of Manufacturing Refractory Material, (Case A,) of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to a method of preparing refractory material to be employed in the mztnufacture of bricks as a lining for retorts or in any other position where an excessive heat is to be resisted.

The object of the invention is to present a material which when molded into bricks and burned or applied as a lining to the fire-bricks of retorts, furnaces, or the like will positively resist the action of heat and also the corrosive effects of certain slags, especially the combination of iron with silicaand alumina, and which will also resist sudden changes of temperature without checking, cracking, or disintegrating.

The material from which the product is made a clay found in certain parts of Missouri and known as kaolinite. This clay has substantially the following composition: aluminium oxid, forty to lifty per cent; silica, fifty to sixty per cent, and other impurities, such as oxid of iron, approximating one per cent. and magnesium oxid approximating two per cent.

The procedure of preparing the kaolinite for use is as follows: A suitable quantity is taken and dried in any preferred manner to free it from moisture or any uncombined water. It is then submitted to a grindingor crushing treatment until it is reduced to a fineness which will permit ninety-eight per cent. of the bulk to pass through an eightymosh screen. The pulverized mass is then burned in the presence of free air to eliminate from the substance impurities organic and volatile and also for the purpose of reducing the ferric compound to metallic iron. The heated product is then precipitated into water-bath, preferably one that is cool, with or without the addition of a flux. \Vhereatlux is employed, and which may be calcium hydrate, its object is to secure certain changes in the physical structure of the particles of the material, such as freeing them from or rendering the silica amorphous. The action of the bath upon the kaolinite is to cause the particles to break up into angularfragments,

in which condition they are best adapted for use. After the substance has tluiu'oughly cooled the water is either tapped off or the material removed therefrom and is placed in molds and subjected to great pressure. After the molded material is allowed to dry it is burned at an intense heat.

Brick made from this substance possess refractory powers not possible of obtainmcnt with ordinary tire-brick, and, moreover, these bricks have the quality of resisting the corrosive action of heat and slags, such as result in rapid destruction of the ordinary brick liningof retorts or furnaces. Instead of molding the material into bricks it may be used as a lining and applied to the interior of retorts as a plaster and will be thoroughly effective in shielding the fire-bricks or other lining of the apparatus from the destructive action of heat.

The procedure is simple, may be readily carried into effect without the employment of special machinery, and the product is therefore cheap and can be readily adapted to fur naces or retorts of any character.

Having thus described the invention, what is claimed is- 1. The herein dcscribed method of preparing refractory material, which consists in taking a mass of kaolinite, freeing it from moistu re or any uncombined water, pulvcrizingit, then burning the pulverized mass in the presence of free air to eliminate organic and volatile impurities and to reduce the ferric compound to metallic iron, and then precipitating the product, while heated, into a water-bath.

2. The herein-described methodof preparing refractory material, which consists in taking a mass of kaolinite, freeing itfrom moisture or any uncombined water, pulverizing it, then burning the mass in the presence of free air to eliminate organic and volatile impuritics and to reduce the ferric compound to metallic iron, precipitating the heated product into a cold Water-bath to cause the particles to disintegrate, then allowing the mass to cool, then removing it from the bath and placing it in molds, subjecting it to high pressure therein, then drying and finally burning at a high heat.

3. The herein-described method of preparing refractory material, Which consists in taking a mass of kaolinite, freeing it from moisture or any uncombined Water, pulverizing it, then burning the mass in the presence of free air to eliminate organic and volatile impurities and to reduce the ferric compound to 

